September 12, 2025
by Joost Groeneboer

“Isn’t it all a bit too much? There’s an abundance of everything.” At Introdans, Roel Voorintholt is putting together a low-stimulus program. More than ten years after he himself was struck by a cerebral hemorrhage. One more time, Roel tells his story.

You actually didn’t want to talk about your cerebral hemorrhage anymore…
“Yes. Let me explain. I move a lot, movement is essential in my condition. After my rehabilitation, a boy at the gym asked me: ‘Aren’t you the man who had a cerebral hemorrhage?’ He had read that in the newspaper. Yes, but I’m so much more than that. Since then I no longer want to talk about my cerebral hemorrhage in the media.”

The low-stimulus program you’ve now put together, was that a long-standing wish?
“Less is More came into being when I returned to this planet. When, after a year, I went back to the theatre and saw performances by Introdans and other companies, it made me very happy. It felt a bit like coming home. But at the same time, I noticed how busy everything was. In the world and on stage. If you have a different kind of brain than the average Dutch person, everything comes in much more intensely, you experience stimuli differently. Sound is very loud and colors are very much colors. Everything is more intense. The good news is that after more than ten years I hardly suffer from it anymore. But there are still so many stimuli. Everyone struggles with that, not just people with brain injuries. During my career I have also seen and created dance pieces that immediately made me feel calm. So I thought: I’m going to put together a program with existing and new work in which the theme less is more is central. A performance that leaves you calm and happy when you walk out of the theatre. I’m curious how the Introdans audience will respond.”

Normally, you try to stimulate the audience.
“Yes, Selon désir by Andonis Foniadakis a few years back, for example, was a whirlwind of energy. You can stimulate with humor and good dance, but also with poetry and stillness. Lucinda Childs is part of the Less is More program with Canto Ostinato, a minimalist piece that demands the utmost of the dancers but has a meditative effect on the audience. And for the third time we will perform Squares by Hans van Manen, set to the music of Erik Satie.

The new piece by Fernando Melo is as if you’re watching a slow-motion film. What’s special is that our neighbors, Arnhem-based Fillip Studios, designed the set: an enormous bar, think of a ballet barre, that lights up and makes sound when you touch it. Mmmmmmm, a very deep, beautiful, calm tone that lingers in your head and makes you relax. At least, that’s how it works for me.

During rehearsals I couldn’t help but ask myself: should there be an image to go with it? A projection of rippling water, perhaps? But every time I come up with something, I look at myself sternly and say: Roel! The theme is less is more. So don’t overthink it, otherwise it becomes too much again!”

“We end with a new work by the Italian-Spanish choreographer duo Igor Bacovich and Iratxe Ansa, a piece with a somewhat larger cast. And what I myself am especially looking forward to is Fractus V by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. For me, that makes the circle complete. When I collapsed in 2013, we were performing his Orbo Novo, which was partly based on the impressions of a neurologist who himself had a cerebral hemorrhage.”

For Fractus V, Cherkaoui draws on the philosophy of Alan Watts about letting go of worrying thoughts. Not wasting time on what lies behind you or what hasn’t yet happened. Breaking free from that endless stream of “what if” thoughts. In the piece, the dancers reflect through body language and hand gestures on Watts’ words. There is a fragment in which the dancers talk about how the brain works. About how your thoughts sometimes run away with you. But they are thoughts, not reality. And thoughts can also be directed. Like: I don’t want these thoughts, I want peace in my mind.

It lasts only five or six minutes, but I insisted it had to be included.
“Life changing” may sound a bit big, but the fact that you are aware you can regulate your thoughts, that you can try to maintain calm through meditation, I find fascinating. Right now I’m still considering: how can I include Watts’ text in the program booklet? How can you inspire people to deal with that enormous flood of stimuli and thoughts in a different way?

I find that an exciting journey.

A low-stimulus performance — what should that entail in your view?
“There’s no recipe book for a low-stimulus performance. Some theatres program low-stimulus shows, which means guests enter separately or have a separate space during the intermission. There are endless possibilities.
A low-stimulus performance must have a certain harmony. Not new light or music every twenty seconds. It should flow gently. Like clouds slowly drifting by. So no storm, no yellow hurricane. I try to apply that also in the costumes and in the set — simply not too busy. Less is More is mainly about leaving things out.”

What do you want the audience to take with them?
“Only when certain bodily functions fail do you realize what it means to be able to move, to dance, to think. Often something unpleasant has to happen before you embrace the good. I hope that when people see Less is More they’ll be glad they still get to experience that. I would like there to be a bit more positivity. That’s what I try to nudge towards in my own way with Introdans. I always try to create unity, not something too extreme, so that you can create your own story and dream along.”

Less is More will premiere on September 20 at Theater Amphion in Doetinchem and will then tour throughout the Netherlands.